


the Dark Lord Stole My Godson

by local_doom_void



Series: Methods of Humanity [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dementor Trauma, Gen, Moral Ambiguity, POV Sirius Black, Professor Tom Riddle, Professor Voldemort really but the tags..., Retired Voldemort, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Sirius Black is a Little Shit, Sirius Black is a good godfather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26451220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: Being Sirius Black is suffering. But at least the Dark Lord Voldemort is pretty good at making tea.
Series: Methods of Humanity [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855237
Comments: 50
Kudos: 703





	the Dark Lord Stole My Godson

**Author's Note:**

> This is shorter than many of my other MoH oneshots because Sirius, _unlike some PoV characters_ , had the decency to be short-winded.

Being the first wizard in known memory to escape from Azkaban sure can be odd sometimes.

To be fair, though, Sirius hasn’t spent a lot of time introspecting about it. Introspection tends to be a bit like asking for attention from the dementors when you’re in Azkaban, so there’s a pretty damn strong incentive not to do it. It’s much less painful to just react to things as they come up. That particular mindset is something that being a dog also helps with, which is why he’s been happily spending much of his time as a dog.

So he can admit he didn’t really consider why Harry was so sure he was innocent. It didn’t seem important, or worth questioning, when it was exactly what he never would have hoped for because it seemed too good to be true. But because it is true that his pup is sure of this, he has no desire whatsoever to think about why Harry thinks this. Knows it.

Well, he had no desire.

But right now he’s sitting across from a man who he’s pretty sure is – a man who is horrifyingly, stomach-churningly certain to be – Voldemort, and Harry is acting like this is no big deal that happens every day. Maybe, he thinks in horror, it actually does happen every day.

In conclusion, he’s starting to worry that he should have asked.

He tries to remember exactly how he got here – well, specifically, how he got into this situation, of sitting in an armchair with a cup of tea. He hasn’t taken a sip yet, because Voldemort made it and it might be bloody poison for all he knows, but Harry has already had some. Harry is also not in distress. These two things don’t make sense when taken together.

He knows of course how they got here, as in, into Hogwarts and then into this room. Ironically, getting into Hogwarts is a lot easier than getting into this room. All he has to do is be a dog and walk right in with a student, in this case Harry. Boom – Sirius Black in Hogwarts. Allegedly the place has wards. Sirius has to guess they’re either intent-based, or else everyone involved forgot animagi exist.

He might be dissociating a little bit. ( _Voldemort is in this room._ ) Maybe call that a lot of dissociation.

This sort of thing was not in any of the Order’s ad hoc conflict trainings during the war. Then again, he can’t exactly blame them for that. Sirius is pretty sure the Order never would have imagined a situation where your godson looks at the man who killed both of his parents – the man who is the reason your godson doesn’t have a dad – and calls him “dad”.

Apparently Sirius fainted. He feels like he remembers being so outraged he couldn’t possibly have fainted, but then again, he can’t remember eating yet today, and he did in fact go from standing up with a finger pointed at Voldemort and white fuzziness overtaking his vision to sitting down in an armchair feeling kind of horrible. There hadn’t been much in between those two experiences one way or the other. Technically that sort of thing could in fact be explained by fainting.

Also, Voldemort is in the room. Did he mention that?

Harry isn’t dead yet, and his tea is almost finished, so Sirius decides _screw this_ and brings his own cup to his lips. His hands are trembling, but he doesn’t feel like that’s fear. He feels, oddly, very un-scared. Probably he’s just feeling the effects of not eating all day after all.

Maybe this is stupid, but he glares Voldemort in the eye when he takes his first sip. There’s a lot of things he could try to say with that glare. Instead of most of the sensible ideas, the specific conviction Sirius comes up with is _fuck you, I’m not going to be the one who starts this fight_.

“So,” he says, and then breaks into a coughing fit because his throat is dry. Another sip of tea helps him to recover. “Heard you were dead.”

Instead of outrageous Dark Lord anger, which he halfway expected, all Voldemort does is arch a single eyebrow. “I was,” he says.

“Too bad,” Sirius grumbles – and then pauses, because the answer he heard isn’t the response he was responding to. He’d thought – but –

“Wait,” he tries to say. “I didn’t mean good – I mean – _what?_ ”

But Voldemort doesn’t say anything.

Is this really Voldemort? Hadn’t Dumbledore been emphatic that the man was mutilated by overuse of dark rituals? The only unnatural thing about him that Sirius can see is the color of his irises, both far too red and gleaming to be something he was born with. Unnatural doesn’t mean ugly, though, nor does it mean horrifying. It especially doesn’t mean ugly or horrifying in this particular case. (Maybe the side assertion that only Voldemort is well-known to have red eyes is a little horrifying, but that’s an inference.) Taken alone, the red eyes even – dare he think this – work. At least, they do when they’re on a very pale, angular man with dark hair.

“I’m pleasantly surprised by you, mister Black,” says this same man before Sirius can figure out a way to ask ‘are you actually Voldemort’ that won’t be insulting. Admittedly, his voice does sound cold, dark, and aloof enough to belong to a Dark Lord, and Sirius has to take a moment to finish processing how he feels about this before trying to figure out how to respond.

“I’m usually unpleasantly surprising, actually,” he ends up saying.

“No doubt.”

“How’d I manage pleasant? Is there a trick I should keep hold of for later?” Is he actually having a casual conversation with Voldemort? If he gets out of this alive he should write a manual of some kind. ‘How to survive teatime with Dark Lords’ or something like that.

“You’re rather less violent than I expected,” says the man who is allegedly Voldemort, and Sirius nearly spits out his tea.

“I’m innocent!” he cries.

“Of course you are,” says the same man, and – rolls his eyes. He actually rolls his eyes, like he’s a normal person. “If anyone were to be assured that you’re innocent of your accused crimes without having any special insight on the topic, it would be me, wouldn’t you say?”

For some reason Harry is smiling as if everything is now right with the world. Sirius cannot possibly focus on that for now, so instead, he focuses on the part where he might have to get rid of that hopeful, short-lived ‘allegedly’. Without his permission, the hand that isn’t holding the teacup goes white-knuckled into the arm of his chair.

“You’re actually V– ”

He tries to force the word out his mouth, but a long ingrained intuition about taboos and invocations stops his breath before he can finish. Sirius takes another sip of tea. “You’re the guy,” he says instead, weakly. (Does he go by You Know Who? He Who Must Not Be Named? Or does he dislike those? The idea of him having opinions feels strange.)

“How come everyone hates your name so much?” Harry interrupts before he can get an answer. Well. That does kind of answer it.

“I hate names.”

He what?

“You what?” Sirius repeats before he can stop himself.

“No, Black,” he says – _he’s Voldemort! That’s Voldemort!_ – and stares Sirius right in the eye. “This is not about me, but about you.”

“No,” Sirius says in counterpoint. “It’s not about me. I’m an open book! It’s about him.” And he points at Harry. On second thought, he also grabs the arm of Harry’s chair and tries to yank his godson closer to him.

He fails to move the piece of furniture. “Sirius,” Harry whines.

“Harry!” Sirius retorts. “Him?!” He gestures wildly at Voldemort again and feels deja vu.

“He’s nice.”

“He’s _nice?!_ ”

“I am not nice.”

“See! Harry, even he says he’s not nice!”

But instead of going along with common sense, Harry settles back, crosses his arms, and pouts with a stubborn face that looks so much like James that Sirius thinks his heart is going to break right there.

“He’s nice to _me_ ,” says his pup, and Sirius can’t wrap his mind around that entire idea.

“But he’s – ” He doesn’t want to really talk about this, but sees no real way forward. Looking at Harry still hurts his chest, so he switches to looking at probably-Voldemort. “You’re him. You’re the guy.”

“Am I the guy?” he says, and – oh.

The expression on that face is hard to pin down. Sirius does know enough to know that involves a subtle, somewhat crooked grin, and that where the entire face was cold and closed for most of this conversation it is now actually a face that could belong to a human. Never mind that those red eyes are making contact with Harry’s green ones as he speaks, and that Harry is straight up giggling, as if there were something funny. As if that were a joke. Nothing about it makes enough sense for it to be a joke, though – unless –

Sirius watches with dawning horror as Voldemort and Harry Potter share an inside joke that nobody else probably understands, and chugs the rest of his tea.

  


The basic outline of events that he is told is simultaneously hilarious from a Sirius point of view and horrifying from a conventional point of view. Sirius can’t decide which reaction to follow, and that’s horrifying in its own way.

It’s not that he thought the Dursleys were nice. When Harry mentioned that he lived with them Sirius had been ready to rage. He might have actually raged and demanded to know what had happened to Frank and Alice, to which had come the secondary horrifying realisation that Harry had no idea who Frank and Alice even were. But his pup had claimed he didn’t want to talk about his living circumstances. That it was fine anyway.

In hindsight, maybe he should have asked why it was fine, but he had been too unwilling to entertain sad, enraging thoughts. Playing childish games of tag and hide and seek with Harry had been a lot more appealing for most of the year.

The horrifying thing is that Harry Potter apparently spent a whole summer with the Dark Lord Voldemort, and enjoyed it a lot more than living with his muggle relatives. That part is also hilarious, from a certain angle, even when Sirius can’t quite get his brain to believe that Voldemort is actually an acceptable adult guardian figure in any sense of any of those words.

There’s got to be something else going on here.

Voldemort claims he’s retired, but Sirius doesn’t believe it for a second. He does believe it for a minute when the man clips an actual transformation stone around his wrist and suddenly turns into Thomas Moregrave the Defense professor. Harry’s favorite professor. As stated multiple times by Harry himself, all year.

“There’s a reason he’s my favorite,” is all Harry has to say for himself when Sirius gapes.

“I’m your favorite??” Voldemort-Moregrave asks. When he’s transformed his voice is nowehere near what Voldemort’s was. It’s smoother, not as deep. Sirius stares, and distantly remembers walking right up to Moregrave one Hogsmeade weekend and giving the man a once-over. He’d smelled faintly tangy overall, with specific notes of ink, sandalwood, and old books. But nothing about him had smelled unusual enough to give Sirius any sign that he was Voldemort.

Harry is nodding, looking away. Sirius wants to go find Dumbledore and shake him until some common sense falls out of the man’s beard, because _he hired Voldemort?!_

“You’re Thomas Moregrave,” is all he says.

“Correct.”

“You’re the Defense professor.”

“Also correct.”

He tries to think of something else to say, but just ends up with his head in his hands.

What’s he going to possibly do about this, anyway? Go running to the Ministry about it and get arrested, disbelieved, and kissed by a dementor? No thanks. Running to somebody who might not get him arrested immediately, like Remus or Dumbledore, is a bit more possible, but even presuming Voldemort doesn’t have plans in place for that, a single look at Harry’s face is enough to dissuade him from those options as well. He broke out of bloody Azkaban to make Harry safe, and if he’s happier with Voldemort than the Dursleys, then the world is the problem for making that reality happen. It’s not in any way Sirius Black’s problem. Only Harry’s happiness and safety is his problem now.

And finding Pettigrew. Of course –

Wait.

Sirius rears up and points at Voldemort. Again. He’s done this about three or four times now, and remarkably, he keeps getting away with it.

“Wormtail!” he exclaims.

“Oh for Morgana’s sake. Harry, has he done this before?”

“No, not you, Pettigrew!”

In that moment Moregrave-Voldemort’s face does something shocking and appalling. The moment the rat’s name finish leaving Sirius’ mouth, he grimaces. “Ugh,” he mutters.

“... you don’t seriously – ” Sirius gapes. “Never mind. Pettigrew! He’s a Death Eater, right?”

“... No,” Voldemort says slowly. “That organisation is disbanded.”

“He’s got a Dark Mark?!”

“... Yes?”

“You can summon his ass here!” Sirius exclaims triumphantly.

All he gets is another grimace, possibly even more dramatic than the last. “Why would I ever do that?”

“So I can kill him!”

“How do you suggest he even enter the castle?”

“He’s already in the castle somewhere! He’s Ron Weasley’s pet rat, or pretending to be!” Sirius pounds his fist into his open palm. “If you summon him so I can kill him, and as long as I can keep an eye on Harry and make sure you’re not hurting him, then I’ll – I won’t make a nuisance of myself. How’s that for a bargain?”

For some reason, Harry is looking increasingly uncomfortable with this line of conversation. Sirius turns his attention to him. “Pup? Harry?”

“Er,” says Harry.

“What have you done now?” Voldemort-Moregrave says. His tone is long-suffering, and it sounds way too much like Charlus Potter for Sirius’ peace of mind.

“Er,” Harry says again. “Me and Ron and Hermione – wekindamightacaughtimalready.”

“Come again?” says Voldemort-Moregrave while Sirius is still working out whether or not Harry actually spoke English.

“We kinda might have caught him already,” Harry says laboriously. “Me and Ron and Hermione. Caught him. In a cage.”

It’s a bit unnerving, how he seems to be in agreement with Voldemort-Moregrave that staring is the best reaction.

“We also held a trial for him. He confessed to everything. He kind of reminds me of a more cowardly Dudley,” Harry goes on, and wrinkles his nose.

“Dare I ask where you have been storing him?” Voldemort asks before Sirius can decide how to react.

“Remember when we went curse-breaking last year and you showed me the Chamber of Secrets?”

“He what?!”

That takes another half hour of explanations, all of which continues to leave Sirius ready to sob in horror while he simultaneously cries of laughter. Then, to put salt in the wound, Harry has to leave before Sirius can ask any questions in order to get back to his dorm before curfew. For some ungodly reason, Voldemort even gives Harry an honest to Merlin invisibility cloak when he leaves, ‘to avoid Severus Snape’.

“But I already have an invisibility cloak,” Harry says, and frowns. Sirius chokes.

“I know you do,” Voldemort-Moregrave says, and Sirius chokes again before he can finish recovering. “But do you have that one with you?”

“... No…”

“I thought not. Just return this to me tomorrow during my office hours.”

  


It is only when the door clicks closed that Sirius realises he is now alone in a room with the Dark Lord.

“What are you planning that needs Harry to trust you?” he says first of all, to prevent himself from thinking about how he’s alone, and how help most likely won’t come if he needs it. Strangely, all Voldemort-Moregrave does is glower at him from the threshold.

“I have no plans, Black,” he says. He has no right to be so eloquent. “Unless perhaps you count the subterfudge Harry and I will be going through to get him from the Express in a week without allowing any adults affiliated with Albus Dumbledore to nab him from under my nose and pack him off to his abusers.”

The mention of the Dursleys has Sirius growling. For a moment he doesn’t have to distract himself from Voldemort, because he actually forgets the man is here in favor of hating Lily’s muggle family. Then he realises that he’s been expertly distracted.

“You expect to just take him home with you? Again?”

That might be a smirk, as the man merely looks back at him. It has all the qualities of a smirk. Could a Dark Lord possible make such a facial expression? “Have you asked Harry what he wants?” Voldemort-Moregrave says. “He was worried I would say no. I have no reason to say no. I successfully cared for him last summer, and he is pointedly not dead, nor maimed. What do you think I did that would merit such suspicion?”

It sounds reasonable, which means Sirius’ first instinct is to emphatically reject it as a lie.

There is a part of him, though, that is trying to talk to him. It is the part that spent his third and fourth years of Hogwarts desperately looking for some sort of method to get out, and therefore a part that he has put aside for the past – however many years – in order not to tempt dementors with it.

Oddly, there are no dementors around Hogwarts anymore – not since Christmas. He’s not sure why that would be, but didn’t bother to question his good fortune. That means, though, that there are no dementors even drifting near this room, and Sirius can think about how even when a child isn’t saying that anything is wrong –

If you know what to look for, you can tell. Say, if you had been somebody who needed to find ways to say it without words. Sirius has spent a lot of time with Harry this year. It’s still not enough, not at all (no amount of time will ever be enough), but it has been enough that he knows, if Harry were telling him something, he would be able to see it. Hear it, with his eyes.

Harry did tell him about the Dursleys. When he did, he spoke both verbally and silently. But there was that other figure, the uncle who he now knows was really Voldemort the whole time, and when Harry spoke of that man he didn’t need to double-talk. Harry has said many times that he likes it there, and there has never been a tick of motion or expression that tries to tell Sirius otherwise.

The very idea of Harry Potter feeling safe with the Dark Lord Voldemort is blasphemy, but then again, one of the Marauders betraying any of the others was also blasphemy – and look where it got them, after Wormtail.

That still does not mean that Voldemort is a good person (he isn’t) or that he will always be somebody around whom Harry feels safe (impossible).

“You’re the guy,” is neveretheless the only argument Sirius can muster.

“Surely you are capable of vocalising my identity?” says the man. His voice sounds curious – he tilts his head to the side. It doesn’t look quite right on Moregrave’s facial features, but Sirius can imagine it would look very good on the angular, cheekboned man from before. “You’ve already seen my face and Harry has quite happily included you in our little circle.”

His voice, its cadence, is nearly hypnotising. Or maybe Sirius is just exhausted. Whatever the reason, he can’t bring himself to move from the armchair in which he sits. He can’t even bring himself to panic as the man slowly walks closer, closer, until he stands before the chair. There is no wand in his hand, but Sirius has no illusions of safety regarding how quickly such a man could possibly call it to hand.

“You killed his parents,” Sirius argues. His tone of voice is not an argument, just a hoarse near-whisper. He ought to be more angry about it, shouldn’t he? James was his best friend, his brother. But Harry ought to be just as deeply angry as Sirius would be, and Harry isn’t angry at all. Harry’s lack of anger has drained Sirius of his as easily as poking a needle into a water balloon.

“I do not deny it.” The man steeples his fingers together. “Are you going to try and revenge yourself on me for it?”

“How should I know?” Sirius hears himself saying before he can even make a decision. While he blinks in consternation at himself, the Dark Lord hums.

Then he is no longer merely standing there, but leaning in – far, far too close. Illegally close. Sirius presses himself back against the armchair and still can't get enough space. There's magic in the air where there wasn't before, and if he hadn't been raised in a house as dark and saturated as it was, he thinks he could have choked on it. His heart is finally racing, like it should have been doing the entire time.

"I am enjoying my retirement tremendously, Black," Voldemort says, and finally, for the first time, sounds just as evil as he's supposed to. "I will be sorely irritated if you jeopardize it in any way. Furthermore, I daresay Harry would be heartbroken in such a situation."

Sirius tries to open his mouth. He manages that, but nothing comes out, so he closes it again.

"Do we have an accord?"

  


What is his responsibility, in this situation?

Sirius is asking himself this question, but once his mind has it articulated, the answer is obvious. Without deliberation, he knows that his responsibility is simple. It’s not vengeance or any such rot (even though that would be nice). It’s Harry. Harry is his responsibility – Harry’s happiness and well-being.

“If you hurt Harry then the accord is off,” he says before he can second-guess himself.

More than any other action this man or Harry has taken, the way he turns away and the dark magic vanishes from the air immediately convince Sirius that – for now, at least – this isn’t war, and there is no reason to be ready for battle.

“More tea?” Voldemort asks him.

Sirius numbly accepts a new cup. He does not pay attention to the fact that his own fingertip brushes one of Voldemort’s in the giving of the cup. He especially does not notice that the other man has skin and warmth and feels entirely human. Feels just like anyone else.

He’s feeling wholly unreal again, so he says something to remind himself that this is happening.

“So what happens now?”

  


By logic, Sirius ought not to be doing any of this. Yet, he is calmly following the man who is Voldemort through the halls of Hogwarts. Neither of them look like ‘themselves’ right now – Voldemort like Thomas Moregrave, Defense professor, and Sirius like a dog. By all rights Sirius ought to suspect a trap. A lie. Something.

Anything.

Sirius can’t bring himself to exercise that caution. Assuming that the man is only ever evil and only ever malevolent is too much work in the face of Harry’s smile when he says that Thomas Moregrave is his favorite professor, or when he talks about how the summer before third year was the best summer vacation he’s ever had. As long as Harry makes faces like that, then nothing makes sense, so Sirius might as well treat the literal, actual man who is Voldemort as if he were a normal human.

Makes as much sense as anything else right now, right?

He doesn’t comment when the man paces three times, nonsensically, in the middle of the corridor. Nonsensicality turns into awe and raised dog ears when a door appears as a result.

 _They_ never found – !

Grudgingly, Sirius feels something that might be shaped like respect. For intellect and persistence, if for nothing else.

He’s even curious enough to bound right into the newly-revealed room, ahead of Voldemort. Soon he regrets this audacity, because inside the room is a plush and comfortable bedroom with a desk and a few comfortable chairs, and on one of those chairs wrapped in blankets and looking painfully healthier than last Sirius saw him is a man who is dead.

The Barty Junior look-alike sits up when Sirius bounds in and blinks at him, as if he’s unexpected. Sirius is frozen, paws on the carpet, staring at the apparition, and behind him he feels footsteps and hears the door close.

His eyes are so blue. Sirius only ever knew of one person with eyes that particular shade of blue.

“Master?” Barty – but he’s _dead_ – says. His gaze is directed at Voldemort, which, fine, Sirius supposes.

He did know that the other man was a Death Eater. He saw Barty’s Dark Mark in Azkaban, since the uniforms weren’t really meant to hide such things. But that never mattered, did it? He was barely more than a kid, and the dementors had loved to torment him for reasons Sirius didn’t want to know. Being right next to him had made it easy to reach over and try to coax him to get up, to eat, to do anything to let me know you’re alive, hey?

Then he had died.

“Master, why is there a dog with you?” he’s asking. “I mean, if I, I don’t know if I’m really well enough to – ”

Sirius transforms back before Voldemort-Moregrave can finish approaching the chair, and scrambles closer as well. “Barty,” he breathes. “Holy shit, how are you not dead?”

Come to think of it –

He tosses a suspicious look Voldemort’s way. “You get into necromancy too?”

“Only when I am feeling morbid,” Voldemort says, which feels like it was a joke, and therefore should not be allowed. “You clearly know Barty. Barty, this is Sirius Black. He is currently in a state of… let us say, neutrality, with us.”

“You use too many big words,” Sirius mutters. He doesn’t care, though, and turns his attention back to Barty. The guy looks overwhelmed. Sirius almost doesn’t ask his next question, but then his impulse control fails him. “So when you died in Azkaban… that wasn’t you?”

Barty pales, but not too much. Voldemort puts a hand on his shoulder as he shakes his head, shaggy blonde hair flying. Sirius does not have the capacity to ponder why Voldemort would bother with a gesture of comfort, so he doesn’t bother with it.

“No,” Barty whispers. “No, I was – I was in a different prison.”

“Aw hell,” Sirius says. He can’t work out how else he feels about this just now, but ‘aw hell’ feels pretty appropriate.

“Am I to understand that you will be capable of co-existing with Barty for the final week of exams, while Harry and I sort out this new complication you have presented?”

“Yeah sure – Oi.” Sirius snaps around to glare at Voldemort. “I am not a complication.”

“Your summer residence is a complication.”

“Like I’m letting you go off with Harry alone for three months without being there to make sure he’s okay.”

“You are a wanted criminal, and unlike Barty, you are not widely believed to be dead.”

“Harry would want me there,” Sirius says – more to see how Voldemort reacts to this sort of finishing play than because he actually thinks the play will work on the man.

“Maybe he does,” is all the man says, which is not a fun response. Sirius pouts at him before realising what he’s doing, and wipes the expression from his face hastily. “Behave. Barty, have you finished the grading I set you?”

And Barty lights up in a way Sirius has never seen. He knew the kid peripherally, even when they were at Hogwarts, and this is not an expression he has ever seen on this face. When Voldemort addresses him he grins so widely that Sirius almost takes a step back at the force of it. Light sparkles in his eyes and he goes from a tired ex-con in an armchair to a bubbly, energetic human, bouncing up and darting to the desk. “Yes, master!” he exclaims. “I finished all of it, and I went through and made some notes about each student’s overall performance, too – you know, what I think their final grade might be, I know exams aren’t done yet but I think that unless there are any outliers you can probably use them as fairly reliable estimates?”

He’s back in front of Voldemort and holding out a stack of parchment as if he’s offering the man a Gringotts key. Voldemort doesn’t even act like this is unusual, just takes the pile and leafs through it.

“Lovely,” he finally says. “Good work.”

Sirius would swear that Barty glows, even though there isn’t any light involved.

“Certain events have exhausted me,” the Dark Lord goes on. “I am going to bed. Black, behave.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Barty, if he does not behave, take whatever measures necessary to ensure his compliance.”

“Yes master.”

Sirius chokes. “Barty, c’mon – ”

But those blue eyes have a look Sirius has never seen before when he meets them. Sirius stops talking, and shuts up.

  


When Voldemort leaves, Barty stares after him for a while. Sirius carefully creeps his way to one of the comfortable armchairs, and gratefully lowers himself into it. After a minute of staring, Barty returns to the same armchair he was using when they entered.

“Is there any food here?” Sirius asks, when the silence starts to get awkward.

Barty twitches as if startled, and looks up. “Um – there might be?” he offers. “This room is a bit special… Just try asking, I guess?”

That’s kind of weird, but then again, Hogwarts is kind of a weird place. Sirius focuses on the idea of a nice lasagna, and to his shock, a nice lasagna appears plated in his lap.

“Is this… real food?” he finally asks.

Barty nods. “I’m not sure of the specifics, but… master said it works. And I’ve been eating it without any problems since I…” He pauses, throat working. “Since I got here.”

“Huh,” is all Sirius says.

Then he spends a while distracted by real, tasty, _hot_ food.

They talk, after that.

Oddly, Sirius finds he’s glad Barty is alive after all.

  


“So, really…” Sirius finally says, hesitantly, when the lights are out and he’s on the floor with a bunch of blankets while Barty takes the bed. “How _did_ you get out? Your, uh, boss guy mentioned he didn’t get re-embodied until 1992, but you were gone way before that.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“It was mother,” he finally murmurs. It’s quiet, but in the silence of the room, it carries. “She was a Greengrass, you know? The blood curse had always been hard on her health, and she was dying anyway, so… she took my place. Polyjuice.”

Sirius takes a moment to process that. He doesn’t really need a moment, but he thinks a statement like that deserves one anyway.

“So, when you died… that was your mum?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

Sirius stays quiet for a while longer, but in the end, he can’t prevent the words from leaving him. (His impulse control really is ruined, isn’t it?)

“I know that I thought it was you,” he says slowly. “But, I guess, maybe you’d like… When – you, well I thought it was you, when she was going… I managed to get up to the edge of my cell and hold your, her, hand. And I talked, to try and be, I dunno, distracting. I thought – I thought it was the least I could do.”

There’s a long silence. Sirius worries he’s fucked it up or something.

“Barty?” he asks, hesitant.

Finally, a muffled noise. It sounds like a sob.

“Thank you, Sirius,” he says. It sounds muffled. “Thank you, I really – I… I’m glad she had somebody there.”

  


It’s surreal and doesn’t make sense, but Sirius keeps forgetting Barty is a Death Eater. (Excuse him – an ex-Death Eater, because the organisation is disbanded, allegedly.) He’s used to thinking of ‘Death Eater’ and having his mental image immediately become Snivellus, or Wormtail, or maybe somebody even uglier – pathetic excuses for humanity who are obviously malevolent.

Barty is hardly a pathetic excuse for humaity, and he’s certainly not obviously malevolent. Sure, when he’s excited, he’s excited because his ‘master’ is here, and that guy is obviously dangerous. But the first time Barty bounces up to Voldemort and gabbles at him excitedly, Sirius cringes because he expects the kid to be tortured. Instead Voldemort endures it with what Sirius is tempted to call good-natured humor, and expertly wrangles that enthusiasm into the productive work of – of doing Thomas Moregrave’s paperwork so that he doesn’t have to.

It’s disgusting how not-evil it all is.

  


Harry is obstinate that he is going home with Voldemort this summer. (“And Barty’s coming too!”)

Sirius doesn’t have the energy to argue about this anymore. He thinks he ought to be more worried about spending a summer surrounded by a Dark Lord (retired or not, he’ll never not be a Dark Lord) and a Death Eater (same issue, no matter how nice Barty is). But they’re oddly not disturbingly evil, nor cackling at nothing. They don’t seem to spend their time concocting evil plots. Barty sleeps, reads, and does all of Voldemort’s paperwork. Voldemort – apparently – checks in on Barty and Sirius, and is a Defense professor.

It’s maddening.

But because Harry refuses not to go, then that means Sirius is going with him.

  


“You’re not to be a dog while you are at my house.”

“Cause you’re not a dog person?”

“Because your scent changes enough from dog to human that Nagini may become confused about the dog’s presence and attempt to actually envenom you.”

“... Oh.”

“King cobra antivenin is only produced by muggles and it is expensive.”

“... Wait, you mean you can buy muggle stuff without breaking out in hives?”

“Black, go away before I curse you.”

  


Is he actually doing this?

“You have to decide now, Black. Either you Floo out with Barty and I, or you travel with Harry. It matters not to me, but you have to decide.”

What would Remus say if he knew?

“Sirius, come with me! Hermione and Ron want to finally meet you in person before we have to vanish for the summer.”

Actually, more to the point, what would James say if he knew?

“Master, Harry said something about pizza…?”

“I suppose we can have pizza. It may be more complicated this year with more people.”

“Yes! I want pizza! I want to try something that isn’t cheese this time!”

Ah, fuck it. Think of it like you’re pranking Dumbledore real good.

“I second the vote for pizza, but I’ll be going with Harry.”

**Author's Note:**

> Literal Voldemort tries to tell him not to let Harry eat junk food. Once they’re in the train compartment and have pulled out of the station, he transforms back and winks at Harry.
> 
> “Don’t worry, pup. We’re totally going to eat junk food.”


End file.
